1. Field
Aspects of the present disclosure relate generally to wireless communication systems, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for signaling User Equipment (UE) capabilities.
2. Background
Wireless communication networks are widely deployed to provide various communication services such as telephony, video, data, messaging, broadcasts, and so on. Such networks, which are usually multiple access networks, support communications for multiple users by sharing the available network resources. One example of such a network is the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), a third generation (3G) mobile phone technology supported by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). UMTS includes a definition for a Radio Access Network (RAN), referred to as UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN). The UMTS, which is the successor to Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) technologies, currently supports various air interface standards, such as Wideband-Code Division Multiple Access (W-CDMA), Time Division-Code Division Multiple Access (TD-CDMA), and Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access (TD-SCDMA).
As the demand for mobile broadband access continues to increase, research and development continue to advance UMTS technologies—not only to meet the growing demand for mobile broadband access, but to advance and enhance the user experience with mobile communications. For example, UMTS also supports enhanced 3G data communications protocols, such as High Speed Packet Access (HSPA), which provides higher data transfer speeds and capacity to associated UMTS networks. HSPA is an amalgamation of two mobile telephony protocols, High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA), which extends and improves the performance of existing WCDMA protocols for high-speed data transfer in mobile cellular networks. In a version known as Dual-Cell (DC) HSDPA, a UE may detect up to 2 downlink carriers. In 4C-HSDPA, a UE may detect and be configured to use up to 4 downlink carriers. In DC-HSUPA, the UE may be configured to use two uplink carriers for data transmission to the base station. It would be desirable to provide mechanisms allowing the UE to signal to the base station the UE's capabilities for data reception and transmission across the various carriers and bands.